1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to managing and scheduling events. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems, methods, and computer program products for managing record events using a priority manager to resolve conflicts that occur between some of the recording events.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Today, many devices have the ability to digitally record a video stream such as a television program. The recorded video streams are often stored on a hard drive where they may be viewed at the leisure of a user. In fact, some homes have more than one device that is able to record video streams. In addition to viewing and recording video streams, these devices often provide other functionality to users, such as browsing the Internet.
Even though a network may have more than one device that can view and record video streams, the number of video streams that can be concurrently recorded is often limited by the number of tuners that are present in the recording devices. Tuners are effectively a limited resource and users encounter situations where they want to concurrently record more video streams than they have tuners. Because of these conflicts, there is a need to determine which video streams or programs should be recorded.
There are many situations that can create an event conflict such as a recording conflict. For example, a recording conflict can occur when one of the programs to be recorded is rescheduled to broadcast at a different time that coincides with an already scheduled event. The rescheduled program is often reflected, for instance, in the guide data that is supplied to the recording device. Recording conflicts can also occur when a program runs longer than its scheduled time. In other words, a particular program may not end at its scheduled time, it may be interrupted by a breaking news story, and the like. Sporting events are a typical example of a program that may not end at a scheduled time. The ability to record beyond the scheduled ending time may conflict with another event that is already scheduled. Another situation where a recording conflict occurs is when a user schedules too many programs to record concurrently.
The complexity of managing these conflicts increases because of the flexibility the user has in scheduling recording events. A user, for example, can schedule an entire season of a particular program to be recorded. However, future guide data is limited in scope and potential conflicts cannot be determined when the record event is scheduled. Some of the future programs, for example, may not air on the same day or the week or they may be special episodes that last longer than normal episodes.
In another example, the user may schedule record events that are dependent on characteristics of the programs. For example, the user may want to record all programs that have a particular actor, which is determined by searching the guide data. These types of events cause conflicts that become known at a later time after these programs have been identified and scheduled. For at least these reasons, recording conflicts are practically inevitable.